Wal-Mart shows off latest, environmentally friendly store

March 13, 1996
Web posted at: 3:10 p.m EST

From Correspondent Dick Wilson

CITY OF INDUSTRY, California (CNN) -- Recycling makes good sense. Businesses, concerned citizens and consumers all over the world swear by it. There's a burgeoning number of products made partly -- or in some cases, entirely -- of recycled materials. Now, a discount department store chain is going the recycling craze one better -- by building "green" stores.

At first glance, the Wal-Mart in City of Industry, California, near Los Angeles, looks like any of hundreds of Wal-Mart stores in the world. But look a little closer, and you'll see a big difference. The City of Industry store is the newest of three environmental demonstration stores, emphasizing energy conservation and recycling -- both in the way they're built, and in day-to-day operations.

The store was built from the ground up using environmental planning -- beginning with the floor tiles. They're made from sliced up old tires. The store's rest rooms boast special, low-flow plumbing.

On the roof, bug-eyed skylights are linked to the electric lights inside, which dim automatically when the outside light gets brighter. Wal-Mart says the system cuts electric utility bills and allows customers to look at clothing in natural light. (85K AIFF sound or 85K WAV sound)

The company believes that all this environmentalism eventually will bring lower prices.

"It would cost about 10 percent more to build a store with these things in it than it would a normal store," said Wal- Mart's Tom Seay. "[But] we're expecting a payback in the range of two or three years on the amount of reduced utilities."

Wal-Mart approached the environmentally friendly project with a partner -- Southern California Edison, the regional electric company.

Edison's chief architect for energy efficiency, Gregg Ander, oversaw touches such as an air conditioning system that uses non-CFC refrigerants, ones that won't deplete the Earth's ozone layer.

Wal-Mart's environmental ideas extend to the parking lot, where customers drive up on recycled asphalt. For those with electric cars, there is even a special parking space with a charging station, although these days it tends to be occupied by traditional, gasoline-powered vehicles.

As for the future, Wal-Mart executives say they plan to build hundreds of similar stores. But they admit that retrofitting skylights in existing stores just doesn't pay -- at least not yet.

Related Sites

• Wal-Mart home page
• Hoover profile: Wal-Mart